


To All A Good Night

by violenteer



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 12:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violenteer/pseuds/violenteer
Summary: The sex was a great thing, but their relationship suffered for a few months. Waylon was still the same person; stubborn, unobservant, cagey. But he was also kind and caring, and he would never turn his back on Miles. And Miles, who was overly critical and casual, had his own problems to work through.So, they came up with a question to ask when they wanted complete clarity.How are you?





	To All A Good Night

“I’ve had the longest day,” Miles began as he opened the door to his and Waylon’s place.

 

Waylon was on the couch, playing a dating simulation game the whole world was going wild over, a smile blissfully curving his lips. He looked up for just a second to take in the sight of his reporter, tired and gruff as he was. Miles hadn’t shaved in a few days, and the shadow was starting to grow into a confident stubble. It hid his jawline, but in a way, Waylon liked that. He was concerned enough over whether Miles got enough to eat, as it was.

 

“You gonna tell me all about it? Food’s in the mic.”

 

Miles set his bags down, one messenger on top of the other, before peeling the canvas jacket off his back and straightening out the flannel that lived underneath. His hair, wavy and brown, was hidden away in a beanie. He was wearing his reading glasses. For some reason, Waylon thought that was the most endearing thing about him. He’d forgotten to take them off, before.

 

As he was getting himself comfortable, Waylon looked back at his computer screen. He probably should have been doing something else. He had a pile of commissions in his email, request after request for modification or renewal or some other delicate change to a stranger’s OS. Waylon couldn’t be bothered, though. He’d been oddly tired the whole day through.

 

He remembered waking up without Miles in the apartment and after that, the day had taken a turn for the mediocre. They hadn’t had breakfast together or caught each other up on how their lives and careers were going. Waylon felt as though he’d barely seen Miles lately, except for when they went to bed at night.

 

Even then, sometimes Miles was a shadow in the night, slipping out at odd hours to figure out a new detail of one case or another.

 

“I want to,” he said, his face stuffed with potatoes and chicken and asparagus. “but that’s a lot of work. And I just got off work.”

 

He snorted to himself, clearly amused where Waylon could only smile kindly. He chose a programmed response within his simulation, and the person he was supposed to date was awash in displeased black smoke. Waylon cursed himself for forgetting to save, and went back a few hundred steps of dialogue to right his wrong.

 

The only thing that could be heard for a while throughout the apartment was the odd clicking noise and the sound of Miles digging ravenously into his food. But he was a quick eater. Always had been.

 

Waylon was just about to re-answer the question he’d gotten wrong before when his laptop face was abruptly shut, and the entire thing placed gingerly onto the coffee table. In front of Waylon, Miles was shucking his pants and socks off and smiling tiredly.

 

He didn’t wait another minute. As soon as he was down to his shirt and boxers, Miles was practically suffocating Waylon with his weight, his head and chest piled into his lap. Miles huffed out a contented breath and kissed Waylon's thigh, his lips warm.

 

“That was really good. Thank you,” he whispered into the fabric of Waylon’s sleep pants.

 

Waylon grinned, lopsided and bright, before he carefully removed the beanie from Miles’ head and started running gentle fingers through his hair. He loved Miles’ hair. It was softer than down, thick and a little long now that he’d decided to grow it out. When they first met, Miles had been hell bent on keeping his hair cut high and tight. Waylon had never disagreed with it, but he knew that Miles didn’t like it.

 

He’d been in the army for a while beforehand, reporting still, and he’d grown used to his choices being left to a set of comforting defaults. Waylon himself could relate. He’d followed all of his parents’ instructions to the T, winding up in Berkley before he’d even turned eighteen. His grades were perfect, and Waylon had gone above and beyond to ensure he never slipped. Not once. But, at a point, everyone learned what it meant to be comfortable in their skin, and to answer their own heart’s desires. Even if the question was as small as what one’s hair should look like.

 

“Thank Olive Garden,” he said back, weaving delicate patterns with his fingers.

 

Miles cracked an eye open to look at Waylon and squeezed his thighs, half his strength lost on the inevitable call of sleep.

 

“Thanks, Olive Garden. How are you?”

 

It was a soft routine they had worked out for a couple weeks, now. Waylon and Miles had been roommates for going on two years. They first met each other over Craig’s List, of all places, and it took the both of them a few false starts before they started to trust each other with more than who would pick up another bottle full of dish soap.

 

Waylon was a generally vague guy, and Miles lived to get to the bottom of everything. Some of their biggest fights involved the reflection of their cores, with Miles interrogating Waylon and Waylon only breaking after he himself felt irritated by the strange, unsure answers he gave to ease the tension. Of course, it never really eased the tension. But the two of them figured it out.

 

After a couple years spent at each other’s sides, they figured out a few things. It turned out the two of them were pretty good at playing programmer or reporter when someone needed it. Neither of them could cook, but Miles was getting better at it. It didn’t matter how clean they were, because they weren’t home enough to fight about it. They were in love.

 

Miles could remember figuring it out one Sunday night. He’d made a murder board out of all the feelings he had, and all the awkward instances he’d gotten into with Waylon. The original intention of the board was to determine whether or not Waylon was a true Taurus, but after a while, it devolved. It always devolved into something else with the two of them. Miles started paying attention to how Waylon would act instead of why, and he made at least ten compare-and-contrast charts in his mind and on paper to denote the facts. Waylon liked him, and after some easier, more straightforward investigation, it came to light that Miles felt the same.

 

He’d come out of his room and into Waylon’s ten minutes later, explaining the entire theory. Waylon listened closely the entire time. They had sex right after.

 

The sex was a great thing, but their relationship suffered for a few months. Waylon was still the same person; stubborn, unobservant, cagey. But he was also kind and caring, and he would never turn his back on Miles. And Miles, who was overly critical and casual, had his own problems to work through.

 

So, they came up with a question to ask when they wanted complete clarity.

 

_How are you?_

 

“I’m really tired, and I think my daughter should be more worried about my romantic life. Have stuff I should have gotten a jump on.” Waylon paused. “Missed you this morning. Missed you in the afternoon, too. And the evening.”

 

Miles smirked and swatted at Waylon’s hands, though he would never ask him to stop. He loved the attention, the feeling. It was grounding.

 

“Amanda knows what you’re doing. She trusts you.” He assured.

 

Waylon would have squawked and asked how he knew what he was talking about, but it was a pointless game. Miles was omniscient. It had been an undeniable fact for a long while.

 

“I hope so. How about you? I feel like you’re going to fall asleep on me, right now.”

 

Miles looked up, said, “Would that be so bad? I had to go to three different court houses. Walker trapped me in the library for a couple hours, telling me more than I ever wanted to know about Blaire. It was all a… a lot.”

 

He’d been working the Murkoff case for longer than he and Waylon knew each other, still with too many questions that begged answers. Miles was persistent, but it was a rare day that saw him working through Murkoff for a full sixteen hours. And his coworker, Chris Walker, wasn’t the easiest guy to be in a room with. He’d been a little overwhelmed. Miles felt it as he brushed Waylon’s bangs out of his hair at four in the morning before getting into his Jeep.

 

It got bigger and bigger as the day went forward, seeming like it would swallow him while he was walking from the main gate of Murkoff itself. He’d been limping down the steps, his foot fallen asleep halfway into the meeting with Gluskin.

 

Miles was deep in it. He’d been deep in it, before. If he could wade his way in, he could get out. It was what he chose to believe, anyway.

 

“You had that patient meeting, today.” Waylon remembered.

 

“Yeah.” Miles said, slurring his words.

 

He was too tired to talk about it. Waylon must have known, because all he said was that it was the right decision, and he was happy the corporation didn’t hold him hostage like Miles feared.

 

“You want to go to bed? I really want to go to bed.”

 

Waylon smiled down at him, having gotten a hand down the collar of shirt. He’d been rubbing circles into his back for a little while.

 

“Yeah,” he said softly, nodding and taking one last drink of the tea he’d made. “let’s go.”

 

And so they went, Waylon practically carrying Miles. They fell into bed together, Waylon pushing the covers over Miles’ shoulders and Miles tugging them off to gather Waylon in his arms instead.

 

The rest of the world felt as soft and as slow as their twin heartbeats.


End file.
